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‘Mother Daughter Me': The Best Memoir I’ve Read This Year

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‘Mother Daughter Me': The Best Memoir I’ve Read This Year

By Kj Dell’Antonia July 18, 2013 2:11 pmJuly 18, 2013 2:11 pm

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See that headline? I’d like it to be longer. “Mother Daughter Me,” by Katie Hafner, is the most raw, honest and engaging memoir I’ve read in a long time. Ms. Hafner lays herself as bare as Cheryl Strayed did in “Wild,” but goes a step further, and gives us no-holds-barred portraits of her mother and daughter as they navigate one challenging year.

Here’s how she describes the book:

In the summer of 2009, in the wake of a crisis in her life, my mother moved from San Diego to San Francisco to live with my 16-year-old daughter and me. My mother was 77. I was 51. Despite a chorus of skepticism from friends — who knew about my upbringing — I was determined to do what I could to help my mother. I also held fast to a fairytale view of our relationship that made us certain everything would work out fine. We referred to our adventure as “our year in Provence.” What I found instead was that I was sandwiched squarely between my obligation to my aging parent, a woman I barely knew, and my responsibility for my teenager.

We planned to live together for one year. But our Year in Provence quickly turned into a Half-Year in Hell; my mother moved out after six months. Having a parent live with you under the best of circumstances can be a terrible stressor. In this case, not only was I caught between the constant needs of my mother and my teenager, but I was roiled by anger and resentment towards my mother, emotions that I had carried with me, unaware, for decades.

What the author isn’t saying there is that her mother was an alcoholic, who’d lost custody of Ms. Hafner and her sister when they were 10 and 12, and that the two women had never talked much about those years. Those skeptical friends must have truly been horrified.

Maybe a willingness to embark on something that others see as madness, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear even to you, is one of the hallmarks of a good memoir. But to that willingness, Ms. Hafner brings a remarkable honesty and an unusual ability to see herself clearly (even if she was blind to her own emotions when the year began). I called Ms. Hafner to ask her where she found the courage to expose herself and her flaws — and her family’s flaws — without flinching.

Q.

How did you manage to be so honest?

A.

I think the word is (and I’m stealing this from someone else) objective. I’m a journalist, and I’m good at writing down what happened. My first draft was horrible, because that’s really all I did — it was me reporting with zero insight and zero analysis, and it came back with all these notes. They weren’t your usual editorial notes, like “This doesn’t flow well.” It was more like ‘What were you thinking?! What did you think you mother would do?’ ”

I had to not step back, the way you do in reporting, but to step in. It turned out to be incredibly helpful. I finally started to really understand who my mother was as a young woman, and what made her so unhappy. As a parent, she did the best she could with what she had.

Q.

Most people would find it hard to write something like this, not just because of their own emotions, but because they would fear their family’s response. How did you get over that fear?

A.

You can’t worry about that and do this well. When I told my mother I was working on the book, she said, “You can write whatever you want. I won’t read it.” Zoe mostly ignored it — she was 16, she wasn’t thinking about what I was doing.

And then my mother did read it, and I think she’s still struggling with it. I’ve said this before, but it’s one thing to hold up a mirror to yourself and volunteer to look in, and it’s another thing to have someone else hold up a mirror and ask you to look in.

Zoe asked me not to write about two specific things that were important to her. To me, they weren’t really relevant, but it’s funny what’s important to someone else. I didn’t, and she’s really proud of the book. She’s proud of the way it portrays her, even though it’s anything but flawless.

Q.

It’s one thing to say, “You can’t be afraid.” It’s another thing to get past that fear of what others will think. You’ve been through a lot in your life (besides her history with her mother, Ms. Hafner was widowed young, and had a disastrous, impulsive second marriage that ended in divorce). Do you think there’s anything about your experience that makes that easier for you?

A.

Being a journalist, you write what you see. If we can’t do that, what use are we? I turned years of training on myself.

Q.

Why did you want to tell this story?

A.

I didn’t start out meaning to write a book. After my mom moved in, things unraveled really quickly — I know, right? Anyone else would have known they would — I had all this bitterness I didn’t think I had. And my mother and I were in therapy, and we went to Trader Joe’s one night after a session, and she was reaching for some Lactaid that was too high. I saw that she needed help, and I didn’t help. I turned my back on my own mother. I just thought, what is going on with me?

I went home and I wrote out the scene, just for me, and then I wrote more, and I started to write about my relationship with Zoe, and it all just kept coming out. The funny thing is, I got the contract to write the book before it was over. None of us knew what was going to happen. I called my editor and I was like, is it O.K. if my mother moves out? Because she’s moving out.

Q.

It’s unusual to write a really good memoir as it happens. Most people would say you have to distance yourself from things before you can write.

A.

I think this one had to be written in the heat of the moment. If I had waited, it would have all mellowed and marinated — it wouldn’t be the same book. It would have softened.

Q.

What’s the best thing to come of having written “Mother Daughter Me”?

A.

It helped me understand my mother, and to understand what my childhood was really all about. I learned to be my mother’s daughter.

Q.

I think many mothers would view that as a real gift, to have their child see them so clearly. Do you think your mother ever will?

A.

I hope so. I think so.

Q.

Would you want Zoe to see you this way‚ with all your flaws and mistakes all blended into who you are?

A.

Oh, she already does.

Q.

You said she was proud of the book — maybe she’s proud that she was herself, and that you really saw her — you weren’t seeing your own version of her.

A.

I hope that’s true. I think it is. I wrote about what really happened, with all of us. When I was writing the book, someone said, “you know, the character you have to be hardest on in this is yourself.”

Q.

You were. And that’s what makes people see themselves in it, even if they’ve never had any of these experiences. If you’re real, people relate. Thanks so much for talking to me.

A.

Thank you!

I should note that although Ms. Hafner was once on the staff of The New York Times, we have never met (or corresponded, or known each other in any of the varied social media forms that people connect over now). I came to the book without knowing the connection.

About

We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more